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Astronomer, outreach coordinator and producer of the monthly news segment of the Jodcast.
Rigel
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- January 3, 2010
- 08:48 PM
- 2,108 views
In the News this month: first observational evidence of a new type of supernova
Stars the size and mass of our Sun end their lives by first expanding as , then shrinking to . Stars heavier than this however, come to a much more violent end.; For stars with masses between about 10 and 100 times that of the Sun, they continue in the core, until they run out of hydrogen. They then begin to fuse the helium nuclei together to form heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. This carries on through the elements until iron, at which point the to form either a neutron s........ Read more »
Gal-Yam, A., Mazzali, P., Ofek, E., Nugent, P., Kulkarni, S., Kasliwal, M., Quimby, R., Filippenko, A., Cenko, S., Chornock, R.... (2009) Supernova 2007bi as a pair-instability explosion. Nature, 462(7273), 624-627. DOI: 10.1038/nature08579
- May 31, 2010
- 02:09 PM
- 1,211 views
In the news this month... volcanoes on Venus
Closer to home, the planet Venus shows large amounts of evidence of volcanic activity. Despite being shrouded under a thick layer of cloud, spacecraft have been able to map the surface of our nearest neighbour using radar, leading to the realisation that much of the planet's surface is comparatively young, suggesting that at some point in the recent past the planet underwent a complete resurfacing. However the question remains whether Venus is currently a geologically active planet.... Read more »
Smrekar, S., Stofan, E., Mueller, N., Treiman, A., Elkins-Tanton, L., Helbert, J., Piccioni, G., & Drossart, P. (2010) Recent Hotspot Volcanism on Venus from VIRTIS Emissivity Data. Science, 328(5978), 605-608. DOI: 10.1126/science.1186785
- January 27, 2010
- 01:21 PM
- 1,174 views
Doctor Who and the Silver Spiral
Far across the universe, something big was about to happen. The explosion would outshine an entire galaxy and be visible billions of kilometres away. Its light would travel across the universe for millions of years but, aside from a few astronomers, it would go unnoticed on the Earth.With a grating, wheezing noise, a small blue box flickered into existence."So, where are we?""Have a look..." the Doctor replied, tapping a control, "but... don't step outside."The door of the TARDIS clicked open, a........ Read more »
Paragi, Z., Taylor, G., Kouveliotou, C., Granot, J., Ramirez-Ruiz, E., Bietenholz, M., van der Horst, A., Pidopryhora, Y., van Langevelde, H., Garrett, M.... (2010) A mildly relativistic radio jet from the otherwise normal type Ic supernova 2007gr. Nature, 463(7280), 516-518. DOI: 10.1038/nature08713
Crockett, R., Maund, J., Smartt, S., Mattila, S., Pastorello, A., Smoker, J., Stephens, A., Fynbo, J., Eldridge, J., Danziger, I.... (2008) The Birth Place of the Type Ic Supernova 2007gr. The Astrophysical Journal, 672(2). DOI: 10.1086/527299
Soderberg, A., Chakraborti, S., Pignata, G., Chevalier, R., Chandra, P., Ray, A., Wieringa, M., Copete, A., Chaplin, V., Connaughton, V.... (2010) A relativistic type Ibc supernova without a detected γ-ray burst. Nature, 463(7280), 513-515. DOI: 10.1038/nature08714
- October 5, 2009
- 07:06 AM
- 1,058 views
In the News this month: first results from a panoramic survey of the Andromeda galaxy
Edwin Hubble's original classification of galaxies into various types based on their visible shapes and structures has been a feature of extra-galactic astronomy since the 1920s. The scheme, originally thought to depict an evolutionary sequence, has two major groups: spiral galaxies with a small central bulge, spiral arms and possibly a central bar, and elliptical galaxies that are more spherical in structure with no spiral arms or disk. There are however, many galaxies which do not fit into thi........ Read more »
McConnachie, A., Irwin, M., Ibata, R., Dubinski, J., Widrow, L., Martin, N., Côté, P., Dotter, A., Navarro, J., Ferguson, A.... (2009) The remnants of galaxy formation from a panoramic survey of the region around M31. Nature, 461(7260), 66-69. DOI: 10.1038/nature08327
- June 7, 2010
- 04:00 AM
- 982 views
In the news this month... runaway star in 30 Doradus
One of the most spectacular examples of a star formation region in the nearby universe is , also known as the , located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This region is a giant stellar nursery, similar to the , but much larger, containing many clusters of recently formed young, hot stars. Some of the young stars in the nebula are many tens of times more massive than the Sun, making them some of the most massive stars known. New observations, on May 5th, show that one particular star is travelling ........ Read more »
Evans, C., Walborn, N., Crowther, P., Hénault-Brunet, V., Massa, D., Taylor, W., Howarth, I., Sana, H., Lennon, D., & van Loon, J. (2010) A MASSIVE RUNAWAY STAR FROM 30 DORADUS. The Astrophysical Journal, 715(2). DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/715/2/L74
- September 7, 2011
- 01:58 PM
- 938 views
In the news this month: discovery of antimatter in the Earth's Van Allen belts
is often thought of as something that is only created in particle accelerators (or that only exists in science fiction movies), but it is actually present in small quantities throughout the universe.; Now, a team of researchers the presence of naturally occurring antimatter right here in the neighbourhood of the Earth.; This population of antiparticles originates from cosmic ray interactions in the Earth's upper atmosphere where they are subsequently trapped in the planet's magnetosphere.Anti-........ Read more »
O. Adriani, G. C. Barbarino, G. A. Bazilevskaya, R. Bellotti, M. Boezio, E. A. Bogomolov, M. Bongi, V. Bonvicini, S. Borisov, S. Bottai.... (2011) The discovery of geomagnetically trapped cosmic ray antiprotons. ApJ, 737, L29, 2011. arXiv: 1107.4882v1
- June 7, 2010
- 04:20 AM
- 893 views
In the news this month... Hubble spots a planet-eating star
Most of the discovered so far are in the class known as "", large gas giants orbiting close to their parent stars, since many of the search techniques used are most sensitive to this type of planet. Usually these planets are located close enough to their parent star that they orbit in just a few days, but a team that is orbiting so close to its parent star that it is actually being disrupted.The planet, known as WASP-12b, is located in the constellation of Auriga and was discovered in the , or........ Read more »
Fossati, L., Haswell, C., Froning, C., Hebb, L., Holmes, S., Kolb, U., Helling, C., Carter, A., Wheatley, P., Cameron, A.... (2010) METALS IN THE EXOSPHERE OF THE HIGHLY IRRADIATED PLANET WASP-12b. The Astrophysical Journal, 714(2). DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/714/2/L222
- February 2, 2010
- 12:02 AM
- 887 views
In the news this month: the coolest brown dwarf yet
An international team, led by astronomers at the University of Hertfordshire have discovered what may be the coolest sub-stellar body ever found outside our own solar system. Using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, the , smaller than other stars but larger than gas giant planets such as Jupiter. The object, known as SDSS1416+13B, is only visible in infra-red light and is in a wide orbit around a somewhat brighter and warmer known as SDSS1416+13A. This discovery is "the fo........ Read more »
Ben Burningham, S. K. Leggett, P. W. Lucas, D. J. Pinfield, R. L. Smart, A. C. Day-Jones, H. R. A. Jones, D. Murray, E. Nickson, M. Tamura.... (2010) The discovery of a very cool binary system. MNRAS. arXiv: 1001.4393v1
- September 7, 2011
- 02:21 PM
- 878 views
In the news this month: a planet darker than coal
Stars are bright because they generate heat and light through nuclear fusion processes in their cores, planets are visible because they reflect some of that light.; The percentage of light that is reflected, a quantity known as a planet's , varies depending on the nature of the planet's surface and its atmosphere.; Jupiter, with its thick bands of highly reflective cloud, has an albedo of 52%, while the Earth's is somewhat lower, only reflecting around 37% of the sunlight which falls on the surf........ Read more »
David M. Kipping, & David S. Spiegel. (2011) Detection of visible light from the darkest world. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. arXiv: 1108.2297v2
- March 4, 2010
- 01:16 AM
- 843 views
In the News this month: the explosion mechanism behind type Ia supernovae
Supernova explosions are initially by the chemical signatures in their optical spectra. While some are caused by the catastrophic collapse of stars more than eight times as massive as the Sun, others are thought to be caused by , stars like the Sun which have already evolved off the main sequence and shrunk in size. Called Type Ia supernovae, such explosions are thought to have a fixed brightness, allowing them to be used as to measure distances to galaxies and test cosmological models of the ........ Read more »
Gilfanov, M., & Bogdán, A. (2010) An upper limit on the contribution of accreting white dwarfs to the type Ia supernova rate. Nature, 463(7283), 924-925. DOI: 10.1038/nature08685
- July 2, 2010
- 05:45 AM
- 807 views
In the news this month: a drop in eta Carinae's stellar wind
are the violent explosions of massive stars, so bright that the events can be seen in distant galaxies. But not all apparent explosions are genuine supernovae. Some fall into the category of , the sudden increase in brightness of a star without the terminal explosion. One such impostor event was the , a star which is amongst the most massive known in the Milky Way. Located 7,500 light years away in the constellation of Carina, the star is five million times more luminous than the Sun and an est........ Read more »
Mehner, A., Davidson, K., Humphreys, R., Martin, J., Ishibashi, K., Ferland, G., & Walborn, N. (2010) A SEA CHANGE IN ETA CARINAE . The Astrophysical Journal, 717(1). DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/717/1/L22
- March 2, 2011
- 05:59 AM
- 754 views
In the news this month: giant black hole in a dwarf galaxy
This blog post is a news story from the Jodcast, aired in the March 2011 edition.
Reines, A., Sivakoff, G., Johnson, K., & Brogan, C. (2011). An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 Nature, 470 (7332), 66-68 DOI: 10.1038/nature09724... Read more »
Reines, A., Sivakoff, G., Johnson, K., & Brogan, C. (2011) An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10. Nature, 470(7332), 66-68. DOI: 10.1038/nature09724
- November 30, 2010
- 12:31 AM
- 727 views
In the news this month: record-breaking galaxy
The most distant object in the known universe is a highly luminous , a single explosion discovered near maximum light, at a of 8.2, a time when the universe was only 630 million years old, less than 5 percent of its current age. The most distant known galaxy lies at a redshift of 6.96, the light we see now left the galaxy just 750 million years after the . However, both these records have now been broken by a galaxy discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope which has a redshift of 8.56 and an es........ Read more »
Lehnert, M., Nesvadba, N., Cuby, J., Swinbank, A., Morris, S., Clément, B., Evans, C., Bremer, M., & Basa, S. (2010) Spectroscopic confirmation of a galaxy at redshift z . Nature, 467(7318), 940-942. DOI: 10.1038/nature09462
- March 4, 2010
- 02:31 AM
- 681 views
In the News this month: emission from methane in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet
In just fifteen years, have been discovered around stars other than the Sun using a variety of techniques. Even without the ability to directly image these other worlds, some of their properties can be determined. Most extra solar planets found so far are massive orbiting close to their parent stars, since these are the types of planets that the detection methods are most sensitive to. As develop and improve, astronomers are finding out more and more about these other worlds, including the co........ Read more »
Swain, M., Deroo, P., Griffith, C., Tinetti, G., Thatte, A., Vasisht, G., Chen, P., Bouwman, J., Crossfield, I., Angerhausen, D.... (2010) A ground-based near-infrared emission spectrum of the exoplanet HD 189733b. Nature, 463(7281), 637-639. DOI: 10.1038/nature08775
- March 4, 2010
- 01:58 AM
- 673 views
In the News this month: the molecular content of early galaxies
A long-standing question in the study of is whether the process was more efficient in the early universe than it is today. Stars form through the collapse of clouds of cold gas. As the collapse progresses, the of the cloud gets denser and hotter until begins and a star is born. In the local universe, however, cold molecular gas is relatively rare so star formation occurs slowly; the Milky Way forms new stars at a rate of only a few per year. More distant galaxies formed stars at a much higher........ Read more »
Tacconi, L., Genzel, R., Neri, R., Cox, P., Cooper, M., Shapiro, K., Bolatto, A., Bouché, N., Bournaud, F., Burkert, A.... (2010) High molecular gas fractions in normal massive star-forming galaxies in the young Universe. Nature, 463(7282), 781-784. DOI: 10.1038/nature08773
- February 1, 2010
- 11:18 PM
- 663 views
In the news this month: Chandra tells tails of extragalactic star formation
Star formation is usually thought of as occurring mainly in the spiral arms of galaxies. In close encounters or collisions between galaxies, the orbits of these stars around the galactic disk can be disrupted, resulting in some stars being thrown out into intergalactic space. But new results from the Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that, at least in some cases, stars can form outside the normal boundaries of galactic disks.A team led by Ming Sun at the University of Virginia used the orbiting ........ Read more »
Sun, M., Donahue, M., Roediger, E., Nulsen, P., Voit, G., Sarazin, C., Forman, W., & Jones, C. (2010) SPECTACULAR X-RAY TAILS, INTRACLUSTER STAR FORMATION, AND ULXs IN A3627. The Astrophysical Journal, 708(2), 946-964. DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/708/2/946
- October 11, 2011
- 11:49 AM
- 660 views
In the news this month: a primitive star in our own backyard
Our current model of the early universe says that, as it expanded and cooled after the Big Bang, quarks began to coalesce to form protons and neutrons which, when the temperature dropped far enough, began to form simple nuclei. Eventually this material, mainly hydrogen with some helium and trace amounts of lithium, began to clump together, forming the stars and galaxies that we see today. Heavier elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, in fact pretty much everything that makes up this pla........ Read more »
Caffau, E., Bonifacio, P., François, P., Sbordone, L., Monaco, L., Spite, M., Spite, F., Ludwig, H., Cayrel, R., Zaggia, S.... (2011) An extremely primitive star in the Galactic halo. Nature, 477(7362), 67-69. DOI: 10.1038/nature10377
- October 5, 2009
- 06:50 AM
- 657 views
In the News this month: discovery of water on the Moon
It is thought that the Moon was formed about four and a half billion years ago by the collision of a Mars-sized object with the Earth. The heat from the impact and subsequent accretion of material created a magma ocean which would have caused the loss of most of the volatile materials from the surface, so-called because they have low boiling points and evaporate easily. In a press conference at NASA on Thursday 24th September, results were announced from three separate spacecraft showing eviden........ Read more »
Sunshine, J., Farnham, T., Feaga, L., Groussin, O., Merlin, F., Milliken, R., & A'Hearn, M. (2009) Temporal and Spatial Variability of Lunar Hydration as Observed by the Deep Impact Spacecraft. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1179788
Pieters, C., Goswami, J., Clark, R., Annadurai, M., Boardman, J., Buratti, B., Combe, J., Dyar, M., Green, R., Head, J.... (2009) Character and Spatial Distribution of OH/H2O on the Surface of the Moon Seen by M3 on Chandrayaan-1. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178658
Clark, R. (2009) Detection of Adsorbed Water and Hydroxyl on the Moon. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178105
- May 31, 2010
- 08:19 AM
- 657 views
In the news this month... the nature of the eclipsing binary system epsilon Aurigae
Many stars vary in brightness, sometimes due to changes within the star itself such as novae or Cepheid variables, others because of external factors. One is , an F-type supergiant in the constellation of Auriga, located at an estimated distance of 625 parsecs (2,100 light years). Since its variable nature was discovered in the 1820s, the star has been seen to fade in brightness every 27.1 years. During these eighteen-month-long eclipses, the brightness of the star fades to around 50 per cent o........ Read more »
Kloppenborg, B., Stencel, R., Monnier, J., Schaefer, G., Zhao, M., Baron, F., McAlister, H., ten Brummelaar, T., Che, X., Farrington, C.... (2010) Infrared images of the transiting disk in the ε Aurigae system. Nature, 464(7290), 870-872. DOI: 10.1038/nature08968
- May 31, 2010
- 09:49 AM
- 640 views
In the news this month... the strange atmosphere of GJ 436b
Most known extrasolar planets are massive gas giants orbiting close to their parent stars. If one of these planets happens to pass directly between us and its parent star during its orbit, then sensitive spectroscopy can be used to determine the chemical make-up of its atmosphere. Models of such atmospheres predict which gases should be present and in what relative abundances, based on physical conditions such as the temperature. Recent infra red observations carried out with the have provided ........ Read more »
Stevenson, K., Harrington, J., Nymeyer, S., Madhusudhan, N., Seager, S., Bowman, W., Hardy, R., Deming, D., Rauscher, E., & Lust, N. (2010) Possible thermochemical disequilibrium in the atmosphere of the exoplanet GJ 436b. Nature, 464(7292), 1161-1164. DOI: 10.1038/nature09013
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